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61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

talent.works

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Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#61

Post by username223 »

whorleater wrote: post #56
hayksaakian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Yes. Any job with entry level requirements will get 20-100 applications on craigslist in seattle (my experience). More or less applications on more or less popular platforms 2) Yes. Half or more of the applications I've reviewed are totally unqualified. Either they ignored the requirements or fudge it and flop on the interview. 3) Tech has even more noise than my personal experience due to higher pay scales and in…

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

Tech work is like sex work: you don't need to feel the passion, but you do need to be able to fake it.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#62

Post by ikeyany »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #34
crazcarl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You absolutely shouldn't lie. But you also shouldn't let your lack of experience stop you from applying to entry level jobs.

If you don't lie you may be out competed by those who do.

Then the focus should be on making it harder for liars to win.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#63

Post by 52-6F-62 »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #38
crazcarl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You absolutely shouldn't lie. But you also shouldn't let your lack of experience stop you from applying to entry level jobs.

You're absolutely right! You should never lie, especially when random company HR wants 10 years of NodeJs and its been around for 2 years. Perhaps lying to get past the know-nothings in HR is acceptable. Probably not a good idea to lie to tech people you would work with.

> especially when random company HR wants 10 years of NodeJs and its been around for 2 years.

My bane!

I swear. I've been doing some form of programming since I was a kid, and as a hobby and moonlighting for more like 10 years, and professionally for a notable company for a few years and I still get automatic responses (* rejections) from HR within hours or a couple of days with 99% of the applications I send out with a generic message full of platitudes. And from any size: small startups to multi-national conglomerates. If I hear anything at all.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#64

Post by headsoup »

dotcoma wrote: post #3

Do we need more evidence that "Entry-Level" means "poorly paid"?

I personally think there two issues here:

a) Expectations of 'Entry-level' actually being greater than 'junior/apprentice'

b) Mentors not part of the role

Both of these issues have arisen from a lack of willingness to have a long-term view and wanting immediate ROI, which I imagine has come about from the perceived view that staff don't stick around anyway.

Set up proper trainee/cadet/apprentice programs, provide mentors and support and these staff will probably a) take the low pay at the start, b) appreciate the learning and support, c) stick around and d) create greater ROI in the end.

Seems not to be how business operate now, and I feel it's painfully evident when I observe how many 'experienced' managers there are in charge of things that have no idea what they're doing. They also appear to often actually have no idea what capabilities they require and so just create industry 'roles' with the hope some experienced person will know what to do.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#65

Post by ryandrake »

pagnol wrote: post #46
jamestimmins wrote: post #27

The buried lede here seems to be "In real life, folks need to apply to 150-250 jobs to get a job". I'd be so, so interested to see the breakdown here, and what causes these types of numbers. Are there just enormous numbers of applicants for every job? Are people applying for jobs they aren't qualified for? How does this compare in tech vs the rest of the job market? The signal/noise ratio must be absurdly low if this…

I've similarly always struggled to make sense of these kinds of claims, because in my life so far I was offered a job every time I applied, so I'm wondering if I'm either living in an area where the job market is much less competitive or if I'm aiming too low. It's out of the question that I'm some kind of hotshot, on the contrary my CV is a mess and I dropped out ouf college.

Congratulations but you’re probably an outlier. I’ve applied to hundreds of companies throughout my career (~20 years), probably an average of around 40 applications per job switch. I’ve applied to some companies multiple times, sometimes right after getting the rejection. Most people I know are in the same boat. Tech companies are so picky and there is so much inherent variance in hiring. It’s a numbers game.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#66

Post by stinkytaco »

kushalc wrote: post #42

Hey guys, I'm the author of this post! (And also happen to be TalentWorks CEO.) A friend sent me this link, I'm happy to answer any Qs. Also, we're hiring. :) If you're sick of spending all your hard-earned education and experience to help Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. increase ad CTR by 0.001%, we're working on some pretty cool technical problems. Just email me at kushal@talent.works.

Hmmmm... what have you got for someone with no experience?

j/k, but I am curious how much time you think is average for a job search in terms of both hours spent and days/weeks before finding something. You talk about "time and stubbornness" but I'm interested just how much time and how much stubbornness. I realize this varies widely by industry, but I would expect there's some sort of white collar average.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#67

Post by your-nanny »

username223 wrote: post #61
whorleater wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

Tech work is like sex work: you don't need to feel the passion, but you do need to be able to fake it.

Touche

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#68

Post by stagbeetle »

whorleater wrote: post #56
hayksaakian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Yes. Any job with entry level requirements will get 20-100 applications on craigslist in seattle (my experience). More or less applications on more or less popular platforms 2) Yes. Half or more of the applications I've reviewed are totally unqualified. Either they ignored the requirements or fudge it and flop on the interview. 3) Tech has even more noise than my personal experience due to higher pay scales and in…

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

It's a cultural-fit thing. You can, but there are the zealous who will deny you.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#69

Post by lr4444lr »

username223 wrote: post #61
whorleater wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

Tech work is like sex work: you don't need to feel the passion, but you do need to be able to fake it.

I'm stealing that line.

Re: 61% of “Entry-Level” Jobs Require 3+ Years of Experience

#70

Post by abritinthebay »

whorleater wrote: post #56
hayksaakian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Yes. Any job with entry level requirements will get 20-100 applications on craigslist in seattle (my experience). More or less applications on more or less popular platforms 2) Yes. Half or more of the applications I've reviewed are totally unqualified. Either they ignored the requirements or fudge it and flop on the interview. 3) Tech has even more noise than my personal experience due to higher pay scales and in…

>without any personal interest / passion in technology Can I not work in tech without being passionate?

You have to have had some level of passion to bother learning about it.

It takes time to learn a topic, that's a form of passion - a drive.

That's not to say you have to burn all hours on it tho. Which I think is what you're assuming there. That's honestly somewhat unhealthy and only super passionate people (and lucky ones at that) can do that for any length of time.

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